"It seems surprising that the Chamber was able to approve, with the support of the majority, an agenda presented by the opposition which commits the Government to consider the possibility of selling class C drugs outside pharmacies. This hypothesis goes in the opposite direction with respect to the Government's line on pharmaceutical services, as repeatedly reiterated by the Minister of Health Ferruccio Fazio, and contradicts the work of Commission XII of the Senate, which is entrusted with examining the reform of the sector". This is the comment of Senator Antonio Tomassini, president of Commission XII of the Senate for the approval of the agenda presented yesterday by some members of IDV and PD, first signatory the Honorable Laura Froner. "Moreover, the approved text contains an original defect" increases the senator Luigi D'Ambrosio Lettieri, secretary of the Commission and rapporteur on the reform projects of the Pharmaceutical Service. «In fact, we start from an imaginative premise on the financial maneuver, which deals with public spending and finance, to then go on to affect a completely different matter, such as competition in the distribution of medicines and any hypothetical savings for the private citizen. And in this regard», underline the two exponents of the PDL, «it is good to be clear: the economic advantages are more theoretical, while the health risks are concrete». Andrea Mandelli, President of the Federation of Orders of Italian Pharmacists, also agrees, according to whom "dealing with a delicate topic such as the release of class C drugs subject to prescription from the pharmacy within an agenda connected to the Budget law which should deal with a completely different matter, i.e. public finance, is objective lightness".
Pharmacist33 – 30 July 2010 – Year 6, Number 141 
